Since hitting their 21st century nadirs in October 2020, shares in Shell (SHEL) and BP (BP.) have been on what, for the ever-volatile oil sector, amounts to a near-uninterrupted tear.
The rising price of oil, a standard litmus test for anyone selling the stuff in supermajor quantities, has of course helped. Cast your mind back to those cramped, unnerving days of April 2020, and you might recall that crude prices briefly went negative. Days later, Shell slashed its dividend for the first time since the second world war, with BP following suit by the end of the summer.
And yet, it hasn’t been a one-way street for producers. After two years of gradual gains were given the adrenaline shot of war in the first half of 2022, forecasts of sustained triple-digit prices have since failed to materialise. Today, at $81 a barrel, Brent is 27 per cent off that recent peak.